Page 18 of The Florist and Her Alphas

The parrot chooses this moment to clear its throat. Or whatever parrots do that sounds like throat-clearing. A small, indignant squawk.

I glance at it. “That’s a cool parrot.”

Julian’s face softens. The dimple comes back. “This is Pepper. He’s nineteen. He’s an asshole.”

“Hi,” Pepper says in a scratchy approximation of Julian’s voice.

I blink. “Did he just say a real word?”

“He talks. Constantly. Mostly things he’s overheard. It’s embarrassing,” Julian says as he reaches up to scratch Pepper’s yellow head. The bird leans into it, eyes half-closing with pleasure.

Julian’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out, glances at the screen, and his expression tightens. “Shit. Excuse me for one second.”

He steps outside, phone to his ear. I can hear the low rumble of his voice through the glass. Ezra’s name floats through the gap in the door. The conversation sounds tense.

The door closes. Julian is outside the shop.

Pepper is still on the counter where Julian set him down. The bird sidles sideways along the mahogany, his claws making soft ticking sounds, and fixes me with both yellow eyes.

“Hi gorgeous,” Pepper says.

I stare at him. “Umm, what the fuck… excuse me?”

“Pretty girl,” Pepper offers, bobbing his head.

My hands find the edge of the counter. “Did Julian teach you that?”

“Like roses,” Pepper says.

I sink slowly onto my stool behind the counter. “What?”

“She smells delicious,” Pepper announces to the empty shop.

“Oh, my god,” I mutter, wondering if that’s something he picked up from his owner.

Pepper is gathering steam now, pacing the counter with the theatrical urgency of a Broadway diva delivering his final monologue. “I shouldn’t have taken those. Where the fuck did I put them?”

“Taken what?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want to know.

Pepper stops. Puffs his feathers to twice his normal size. Looks me dead in the eye with the gravitas of a Shakespearean actor and says, with great feeling: “I’m in love with Liana. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.”

The glass vase in my hand hits the floor.

It shatters. Water and stems and glass shards explode across the wide-plank flooring, and I’m standing there with my empty hand still outstretched, my heart hammering against my ribs, and Pepper is surveying the damage with what can only be described as smug satisfaction.

“Bad bird,” he says.

The bell rings.

Julian walks back in.

He immediately takes in the scene of me standing amid broken glass, Pepper preening on the counter, the yellow ranunculus scattered across the floor like fallen stars.

His face goes still. “What did he say to you?”

I don’t look up. I’m staring at the largest piece of glass, a jagged crescent near my boot. “He said: I’m in love with Liana.”

Silence. Long, thick, weighted silence.